


hey now, you're an all-star

by verity



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Children, Comfort Food, Domestic, Family Feels, Multi, NHL All-Star Weekend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-21 01:51:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17633816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verity/pseuds/verity
Summary: Toward the end of the flight, Sid forks over for the shitty inflight wifi. A series of messages from Anna come through, followed by one from Geno. He opens Geno’s first, turning his phone carefully away from the aisle. It’s just a selfie, fully clothed, of Geno lying in bed with Nikita sprawled out on his stomach. Geno looks both affectionate and absolutely miserable. Sid is not prepared.





	hey now, you're an all-star

**Author's Note:**

  * For [getoffmyhead](https://archiveofourown.org/users/getoffmyhead/gifts).



> getoffmyhead, thanks for such a wonderful prompt—I hope you'll enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.
> 
> greatest thanks to my cheerleaders, especially [redacted], who helped so much with the little details.
> 
>  **author's note** : Sid, Geno, Anna, and Nikita are all recovering from the stomach flu. No one throws up on screen, but there are numerous references to nausea and vomiting.

The NHL flies Sid and Tanger first-class on United out of SFO. He spends boarding looking out the window, where the sky is growing light above the taxiway and the lanes beyond, a vivid orange pushing back the pink clouds floating over the night sky. It’ll be dinnertime when they get to Pittsburgh. 

Tanger passes out before the stewardess can start with the safety lecture. Sid’s spent all of his life going from plane to bus to car to rink, so he knows better than to sleep now and wake up jet-lagged. He checks his texts again again as they taxi out to the runway. There’s just one, from Anna, a photo of Nikita conked out in the middle of his playroom with one half-loop of his Brio train track assembled, his hair sticking to his sweaty forehead. He has a passenger car tumbling out of his lax grip. 

_Feeling better?_ Sid says. 

Anna’s reply comes quickly. _Yes. But he has been up all night, Zhenya also._

Poor Geno. Sid’s not the one who needs to worry about jet lag. _Hang in there. See you soon._

The plane lifts up and Tanger jolts, letting out a loud snore before he settles again. Sid switches his phone into airplane mode as they start their ascent. He’s still a little queasy and this isn’t helping his stomach. God, this trip. Not for the first time, Sid wishes he could have just stayed home.

* * *

“Got any wild plans tonight?” Tanger says when he wakes up an hour later. He yawns.

“Me?” Sid says. “Plans?”

He’s always conscious of being overheard, even on the team plane. Not that his relationship is a secret from everyone, or could be—but it’s private. Sharing is not his decision alone. 

Tanger comes alert then, lurching out of drowsiness into alert discretion. “Ah, bien sûr,” he says, switching to Québécois. “What plans could such a respectable bachelor like you have. Playing bridge at the retirement home?“

Sid rolls his eyes. “Not even for a photo op.“

“You like bridge.”

“Too competitive,” Sid says. “I’d make all the old ladies cry.”

Tanger shakes his head. “Are you kidding? Old women are the masters—they’ll wipe the floor with you.”

The front cabin stewardess approaches them, smiling. “Would you gentlemen like anything to drink?”

“Champagne for him,” Tanger says in English, hiking his thumb toward Sid.

“It’s 8am, Christ,” Sid says, then, “Coffee for both of us, please?”

The coffee is bad in the way plane coffee is always bad, but no worse than that. Sid drowns his in enough cream and sugar to make it drinkable. They’ve reached the point in the season where his nutritionist has switched from yelling at him about how much processed sugar he eats to the one where she yells at him about how many more calories he’s supposed to be eating. Do they have real breakfast on this plane? Sid pulls the menu out of the seat pocket to find out.

Tanger shakes his head. “Prepare for disappointment.”

“They have a ‘brioche apple soufflé,’” Sid recites. “Served with chicken sausage.”

“Good God,” Tanger says.

* * *

Sid’s stomach can’t take the soufflé, but he forces down the chicken sausage and then a protein bar. There’s pasta at home. While it horrifies Anna, she’s accepted that Sid is going to make enormous batches of spaghetti and meatballs and freeze them for nights just like this. Why else do they have a chest freezer? Sid lived on his own for years—well, when he couldn’t avoid it. He can feed himself okay.

Toward the end of the flight, he forks over for the shitty inflight wifi. A series of messages from Anna come through, followed by one from Geno. He opens Geno’s first, turning his phone carefully away from the aisle. It’s just a selfie, fully clothed, of Geno lying in bed with Nikita sprawled out on his stomach. Geno looks both affectionate and absolutely miserable. Sid is not prepared.

He almost doesn’t open Anna’s messages, but curiosity wins out. They’re just text, no photos— _I will order out tonight, if you want?_ and _We are eating mama’s schi_ and, last, _I will heat a bowl for you when you get in, you need it._

 _You’re the best,_ Sid replies to her, and to Geno, _:( Sorry you’re so sick, G._

Sid has always been cautious about what he puts into writing, which means that when he really needs to express himself that way, he often doesn’t know what to say. Everything makes so much sense in the moment. If Sid were there, he’d take care of Geno, he’d put Nikita to bed, he’d get Anna to let him warm up Geno’s mom’s soup (the other justification for the chest freezer). If Sid had been at home on Friday, so sick he couldn’t get out of bed, they would have taken care of him, too; they wouldn’t have let him exert himself over the weekend.

Instead, Sid was in fucking San Jose. So he did what the NHL pays him a cool $8.7 million a year to do and he did it better than anyone else, because he’s petty as shit.

* * *

Tanger drives Sid home. “Where’s your new Honda?” he says as he’s tossing their bags in the back of his car.

Sid sighs. “I was supposed to have a ride, but the only thing he can keep down is soup.”

“Of course,” Tanger says. “Let’s get you home to nurse your invalid.”

They’ve arrived just early enough to miss the rush hour traffic. Tanger puts on the radio and Sid taps his fingers on his knee while they drive, not bothering to try to keep a beat. The closer they get, the more Sid wants to ditch and run the rest of the way, which would be dumb and counterproductive. He just wants to be _home_.

The trees part and there they are, at the end of the long drive, pulling up in front of the house. Much of this weekend’s snow has melted, but there are still icy drifts where the shade falls at the end of the driveway. “See you tomorrow,” Tanger says, amused, as Sid scrambles out of his seatbelt and then his seat. 

“Thanks!” Sid calls through the back hatch as he slings his bag over his shoulder. He doesn’t run to the door because he has some dignity, and because even on a the well-salted driveway, he doesn’t want to take his chances with surprise black ice. 

No one is at the front door to greet him, but he can hear Anna’s voice in the kitchen, barely carrying to the foyer. Sid kicks off his shoes and carries his duffle in with him. “Anya,” he says when he gets to the back of the house. “How are you doing?”

Anna is in sweats and one of those enormous t-shirt that goes nearly to her knees. She has dark circles under her eyes and her hair in a bun, which means she hasn’t washed it in days and thinks it’s gross. “I have been better. The boys—” She winces. “Nikita threw up again just now. He was not ready for toast.”

“Ouch,” Sid says.

“But I have the soup on the stove,” Anna says, and then she smiles—that big, goofy smile that transforms her face with affection. “You are not eating that disgusting pasta again.”

Sid huffs. “It’s not _disgusting_.”

“You do not season anything!” Anna says.

When Geno and Anna first got together, Geno was worried that Sid and Anna wouldn’t get along. They’re both headstrong, sure, but Sid loves that about Anna—that she gives as good as she gets, that she’s confident and ambitious, that she doesn’t hesitate to tease him about his bachelor pasta or his Crocs. Where things really matter, they’re aligned.

“I’m going to put in a load of laundry,” Sid says. “Do you want me to change the sheets?”

Anna looks at him for a long moment before she crosses the kitchen to him and throws her arms around him. “Yes. Please.”

Sid takes a moment to put his nose in Anna’s dirty hair—which smells good to him, she always smells good to him—and then he kisses her forehead. “I’ll take care of it.”

* * *

Nikita has the incredible ability to sleep through almost anything. Sid is still gentle as he lifts Nikita up from Geno and Anna’s bed and carries Nikita down the hall to his own freshly-made one. Sid tucks Nikita in between his spaceship sheets, then doubles back for his monkey lovey and one of the clean bowls beside the big bed. Geno is awake this time, groaning as Sid passes. “Sid, what are you doing?”

“Shhhh,” Sid says.

Once he’s back in Nikita’s room, he sets the bowl by the bed and contemplates the monkey, which smells a lot like a toy that has been dragged around by a toddler through a sickbed. What’s the tradeoff between washing it versus the certainty that Nikita will flip out if he wakes up and realizes his lovey is gone? Sid is sympathetic, but—puke. He takes the monkey with him.

“Your turn,” he says to Geno. “I’m changing the sheets. Can you get up and sit in the chair for a minute?”

Geno buries his face in his pillow. “No.”

“ _Geno._ ”

“I’m sick, I’m not do anything. Too much work.”

Sid crosses his arms; he’s still holding Nikita’s monkey. “You’ll feel better. At least let me do the pillowcase?”

“Cruel,” Geno says, but he rolls onto his back and cautiously levers himself up. He really does look sick—sweaty and pale. “Maybe I take a shower.”

“Are you going to be able to stand that long? I’ll run you a bath.”

Geno looks like he wants to protest, but his shoulders droop. “Okay.”

The master bath has a walk-in shower, an enormous tub, and then a jacuzzi behind a locked door that Anna had installed when Nikita started walking. Sid gets the bath going and digs out the Epsom salts from under the double sink. He’s never been in a relationship long or serious enough that he’s done stuff like this before. Sometimes, he’s afraid of how much he loves them, wants them, wants this.

Geno wobbles in while the water is running and shucks off his briefs. “Thank you,” he says, putting a hand on Sid’s shoulder. “I wish we could take care of you this weekend.”

Sid bites his lip. “G—”

Geno slides into the water with a groan. The water sloshes around him before it settles. “You better at being sick, though. I’m big baby. Useless.” He reaches out to take Sid’s hand. 

“I don’t think you can be the MVP of being sick,” Sid says, dragging his thumb over Geno’s knuckles. Geno’s hands are so big. If Sid weren’t still recovering and Geno feverish, that’s the kind of thing that would get him going. Touching Geno just to touch feels a little forbidden. He bends down and presses a kiss to Geno’s knuckles anyway. 

“You the MVP anyway,” Geno says with a sigh.

“Yeah,” Sid says. “I am.”

* * *

Geno and Anna have a washer and dryer right in the ensuite, so Sid gets the laundry started and changes the sheets and all the pillow cases. The bed is a California King, which seemed enormous to Sid until he started sharing it with them.

Before Anna, Sid didn’t hook up with Geno when Sid was with someone else, and if Geno was with someone, he only hooked up with Sid on the road. “Anna not okay with it,” Geno said to Sid, right when he first got together with her. “I tell her, always with girls, what happen away is my business. For her, not okay.”

“Of course, G,” Sid said, and he thought that was that. He was sadder about it than he expected. They saw each other almost every day during the season, and now that Geno was with Anna, they got together even more. Anna and Sid could talk while Geno sat in his recliner watching TV or reading a book, occasionally chiming in, and Geno didn’t get tired and Sid didn’t get bored. Anna gave Geno what he’d always wanted—a family of his own.

Then, the summer after their third Cup win, Geno pulled Sid aside after one of the big parties. They were a little drunk, but not that drunk; they were old-timers now and they had to watch out for the younger guys. “Sid,” Geno said. “I talk with Anna about something.”

Sid thought it was going to be like—a cookout, or something. “Yeah?” He took another pull of his IPA.

“She say, it’s okay if there’s another person if she there. If it’s—you.”

“For what?” Sid said.

Geno started to cross arms, then reversed course mid-motion and dropped his arms to his sides. The contents of his Solo cup sloshed perilously toward the rim. “For _sex_ ,” he said, dropping his voice. “What you think I mean? For dinner?”

“I’m already there for dinner,” Sid said, his mouth a little ahead of his brain. God, he was sober enough to handle one of the rookies getting alcohol poisoning, not sober enough for this.

Geno nodded, though, like what Sid had said made sense. “Yes. That why it’s okay.”

* * *

Sid and Anna eat their soup in the kitchen before she portions out some for Geno, still in the bath, and Nikita. “He will be up all night if I do not wake him,” Anna says. She sighs. “Probably he will be up all night anyway, but I can hope.”

Geno’s mom’s schi is none the worse for a few months in the freezer. The beef broth warms Sid’s mouth, the cabbage is tender, and carrots and tomatoes give it a little sweetness. It’s the perfect thing to eat after a long week that’s been hard on his heart as well as his stomach. 

“Hello, hello,” Geno says, coming down the stairs with Nikita, who is red-faced from crying. Oh no. “This one miss his monkey. I tell him, after dinner—time we join you.” Geno’s hair is wet.

“Are you okay to be up?” Sid says as he takes Nikita and plunks him, still kicking, in his high chair.

Geno shrugs. “I’m hungry.”

“We take care of that,” Anna says, getting to her feet. She leans up on her tiptoes and Geno bends down so she can kiss his cheek. 

Nikita is two and a half and as stubborn as Geno or Anna. “Where’s monkey?” He pounds his heels against the plastic frame of his high chair. “You took him.”

“Yes, I did,” Sid says, leaning down. “He had to go into the wash. We’ll get him soon.” He takes one of Nikita’s socked feet in hand. “Don’t hurt yourself. Do you want something to eat?”

“Want _monkey_ ,” Nikita says.

Anna comes up behind Nikita and wraps her arms around him, planting a kiss on top of his head. “You are _my_ little monkey, Nikesha.” In quick succession, she presses kisses to his cheek, his ear, and then, lifting her head, to Sid’s cheek. “I bet by the time you eat, your monkey will come out of hiding.”

“I put in dryer,” Geno stage-whispers as he settles himself at the table with his soup. “Nikita, you are big boy now. You eat with us, it time. We celebrating tonight.”

“My monkey,” Nikita objects as he goes limp in Anna and Sid’s embrace.

“We can celebrate with your monkey later.” Sid lets go of Nikita’s foot.

Anna squeezes Nikita until he squirms, scrunching his nose. “If you eat dinner, there will be ice cream later.”

“Oh, there will?” Sid says.

Geno grins. He still looks like warmed-over death, but there’s light in his eyes. “Not every day we have All-Star MVP at the table.” 

Sid rolls his eyes, cheeks heating. “Oh my god.”

“Look at him, Zhenya, he is blushing,” Anna says.

For a moment, Sid’s overwhelmed with the crushing vulnerability of this joy in getting what he wants, but it passes as soon as it comes, leaving him suffused with affection. He’s home with his family. They love him and he loves them. This is where he wants to be.

Nikita kicks his foot again. “Don’t want dinner,” he says mulishly. “Ice cream.”

“ _Nikesha_ ,” Anna says.

Sid pats Nikita’s shoulder. “I know that feeling, bud.” He looks at Geno, who’s smiling at them fondly. “Let’s sit down together. I missed you.”


End file.
